Gentle reader, try not to judge me for what you’re about to read. It’s not one of my finer moments & I promise to change my shameful ways…maybe.
A few weeks back, CCL and I were in a discussion about the neighborhood in which we both happen to live. It’s a very large community of about 3,000 homes, semi-detached homes, and townhouses. It spans hundreds of acres & so to say we live in the same neighborhood is a relative term. Each section of the development is broken into its own neighborhood set-up. For instance, all townhomes are together & the bulk of the streets in that section all include the word “Stone” as part of their street name. I believe that area is all known as the Stonewood section. I don’t know what our area of the development is called, but I’m sure it has something to do with a lake, since most of the homes and streets surround the lake behind our house. At any rate, that’s how the development is set up. During our conversation, I learned that CCL in fact does live in the Stonewood section. I knew she lived close to us, but I didn’t realize it was THAT close. Stonewood backs up directly against the street one has to take to get to our street; theoretically, it was very possible that if one were to look out CCL’s back window, she could be looking down our street. Creepy much?
So, I mentioned this to my partner, whom—in the interest of keeping anonymity on this blog—we shall call Doc. Sure, I could be more creative than that, but it’ll be the easiest for me to remember moving forward. Anyway, Doc and I were discussing that CCL may, in fact, be our neighbor. I had told him earlier that evening that CCL would be off work the next day because she was going to the museum with her parents. He asked why she would take the whole day off for that, so I had to explain that she doesn’t like to drive in the dark & that if she went after work, it’d be dark. (Keep in mind, the art museum would be about five miles from CCL’s house. And those five miles are all major roads or ones that take you through neighborhoods comprised of multi-million dollar homes. It’s not like it takes her through the ghetto.) He pointed out that she’d then be home (at the time of our conversation) because it was already dark. That’s when it all went downhill.
We were headed out to do some shopping at about 8 pm, driving down our street towards the back of the Stonewood neighborhood. That’s when Doc decided that we needed to find CCL’s house. (Don’t forget: I warned you in the beginning to not judge me. This would be the time to start that.) So, rather than taking a left, he took a right & continued into the Stonewood section. We were able to rule out the townhouses that face our neighborhood, as it turns out they have garages. I knew that CCL has two parking spots, because she’d once told me about how a neighbor had a car parked next to her spot for about two weeks & didn’t ever move the car. She watched it each night & all weekend, but it never moved and that stressed her out. I don’t know as she appreciated my suggestion that the person could just be on vacation or that it’s a friend’s car that’s being parked there while they’re on vacation. At one point—and this is key to what happened in our pursuit of CCL’s abode—she stated that she started parking in both of her parking spots so that no one else would park a car there and leave it. (Personally, I’d do it just because I could & to protect my doors from being dinged, but hers was a much more paranoid reason.)
At any rate, we were driving along & eliminating roads based upon the existence of garages. I was giving Doc the basic directions she had given me, but couldn’t exactly recall street names. We started following my rough directions & once we got to a certain street, I shouted, “That’s it! That’s the right name.” So we headed down it, this street with no garages, and Doc said, “She drives a red Cavalier, right?” I confirmed this. He turned onto another street and as he was taking the split to the left, I saw a glimpse of a red car on our right, as he said, “That’s it! A red Cavalier.” I looked at where he was pointing and it wasn’t at the car I had caught a glimpse of, but was instead a two-door Cavalier. CCL drives a four-door. So, I said that I’d seen one to the right and couldn’t tell if it was a Cavalier or not because it was a last-second glimpse mid-turn. At that point, our stalkerish ways kicked into overdrive. We’d picked up the scent (mostly of cats) and we were running with it…
We headed back in the direction of the car I’d seen & as we got to it, we saw that it in fact was a red, four-door Cavalier. However, I don’t know what CCL’s license plate is (don’t judge me for having the thought in the first place) and so as I was explaining that we couldn’t know for sure, it both hit us. The car was parked in two spots. That sealed the deal! But it gets better. As we were pulling away, I looked up at the front of her place & noted that her lights were on and her blinds were open in the front bedroom. CCL doesn’t even have a voicemail greeting on her home answering machine (hello, 1980s) because she feels like her doing so will simply say, “I’m a single female. Come attack me.” (Her words, not mine.) Having this view right into her place seemed most unsafe to me, considering her paranoia levels (and then I thought, “Oh, Lord. I’m beginning to think like her.”), but as I was stating this, I saw it—the back of her head in front of her computer! It was CCL! Any small fraction of doubt was immediately eliminated, because I know the back of her head & I also know that she spends all of her time at home in online “reality” sites. She has an avatar she uses consistently, whom she designed to look nothing like her & who has a name nothing like her own. And, after some online relations, her avatar even got pregnant. (Another story for another time.) That led to my next statement to Doc: “Oh. I bet she’s having online relations. And we just saw.” Doc said, “You had to go there, didn’t you?” And we drove off.
It was a line I couldn’t retract from, sadly enough, but it was then that I had to remind him that it was, in fact, him that thought to even find her house in the first place. Anything unsavory after that pales in comparison to that initial decision. (I’m also confident that she has sought out our house, after telling her where we live.)
So…what do we do with this new-found knowledge of her home’s location? I say we take her a plate of Christmas cookies! Afterall, how else am I ever going to see the INSIDE of her house????
